


so you wanna be immortal

by heartunsettledsoul



Series: Forgotten Moments [5]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: 2.05, Angst galore, post-ep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-09
Updated: 2017-11-11
Packaged: 2019-01-31 04:27:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12674415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartunsettledsoul/pseuds/heartunsettledsoul
Summary: 2.05 post-ep: The only thing that made sense was that her hands were wrapped around a mug of coffee. The vice grip on caffeine was the Betty he knew.canon compliant pre 2.06





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Listen, this is an angst-fest and I'm so, so sorry.  
> (I love everything this episode set up, tbh. It was flawlessly acted and made me cry and I just want to hug Jug, then Betty, then make them hug each other. That is all.)

Jughead stood in the parking lot of Pop’s trying to convince himself to walk through the front door. He’d walked, because his body was still too bruised and tender from the gauntlet to hunch over the handles of FP’s old bike. Every part of him ached, and his body wasn’t even the worst of it. In the days that had passed since that night, Jughead hadn’t left the trailer and barely even left his bed. He thought his lowest point had been the morning after Homecoming, acutely feeling another rejection from his mother and the betrayal of his best friends. This was so much worse: now Jughead felt almost nothing, just a sheer hollowness. It was as though the bottom dropped out from under him after Archie told him what Betty had been too cowardly to tell him herself. He’d relished in the physical pain that radiated through him as he ran the Serpents’ gauntlet because it made him feel less empty inside. And then there was Toni. He’d quashed his gut reaction of wanting  _ so badly  _ for it to be Betty coming toward him instead.  _ This might as well happen,  _ he’d told himself.  _ Everything already is a fucking mess.  _

 

It had felt so wrong. She didn’t taste like the chapstick Betty always had on, didn’t relax into as though a singular kiss made everything else disappear. It felt like the polar opposite of the last kiss he and Betty had shared in Pop’s just days before. But Jughead  _ hurt  _ and felt so goddamn alone and apparently all he had left was the Serpents. She had smirked, as though satisfied with herself, afterward and he really hadn’t liked that. If the gauntlet hadn’t sealed his fate, that kiss definitely had. 

 

So he spent two days in bed, running through that moment and the gauntlet and his last interaction with Betty. Jughead kept replaying that afternoon over and over again, trying to figure out where he had missed the clues, the hints that she was about to rip out his heart and stomp on it. Betty hadn’t quite seemed herself, but he had selfishly assumed it was because they hadn’t seen each other in days. Clearly he was wrong. He was haunted by that interaction, their kiss, her smile that lit up the diner when she looked at him. It was why he was still standing, paralyzed, in the parking lot. 

 

Jughead really didn’t want to run the risk of seeing Betty inside. Or Archie for that matter. But he had finished off the last of the coffee in the trailer and figured he should actually show up to school today, lest Toni or Sweet Pea come knocking again. If he was going to suffer through the rest of this depressing chaos, he needed coffee. Jughead scanned the booths visible through the front windows of Pop’s: no letterman jackets, redheads, or perky blonde ponytails to speak of. He might be safe. 

 

He shrugged off the nagging thought that it was  _ weird  _ Betty wasn’t even there, because she too had picked up the habit of stopping for coffee at Pop’s before school. 

 

Mentally kicking himself because  _ god  _ he had to stop thinking about her, it made his heart squeeze as though in a vice grip, Jughead steeled his nerve and pushed through the diner’s door. The bell’s light ringing echoed in his head and he flashed back to seeing Betty in the booth before him, turning over her shoulder to beam at him. He blinked, shaking the image. Betty wasn’t there. Even if she were, she wasn’t going to be smiling at him. Time to readjust his expectations. Not that it would be that hard: even after their “I love you’s” Jughead still couldn’t believe his idiotic luck that he had someone as amazing as Betty Cooper in his corner. And now his sheer dumb luck had run out. 

 

He gingerly settled onto a stool at the counter and if Pop wanted to say anything about his favorite customer’s bruised face, he chose not to. Jughead sighed into his cup of coffee and tried to clear his head, determinedly  _ not  _ thinking about all the mornings he and Betty had sipped their coffee together before walking to school. He was  _ definitely not  _ thinking about how happy and smiley she’d been on Retro Night. 

 

Pop topped off Jughead’s coffee after he quickly drained his first cup. “Anything to eat, Jug?” 

 

Jughead shook his head in response and Pop gestured vaguely to a booth in the very back corner. “If you missed her when you came in, your girl’s back there. She seems a little out of it this morning.” 

 

He whirled around on the stool, instantly regretting the sudden movement when a stabbing pain shot through his side (he wasn’t entirely unconvinced he has a broken rib). The second he laid eyes on Betty, he knew how he had missed her in his preemptive scan. She didn’t  _ look  _ like Betty. She was as beautiful and heart-stopping as ever, but something was seriously wrong. She looked awful. 

 

Her hair was pulled back in a disheveled manner, tendrils falling out of an askew hair clip. It was jarring to see her without her usual ponytail, but even more jarring to see that she wasn’t in a sweater or pastels. It was an oversized and frayed crewneck sweatshirt – his heart faltered, because it was  _ his.  _ Or more accurately, it was FP’s, but Betty had been freezing in the trailer doing homework one night so Jughead dug around in the coat closet to find something to give her. She’d never brought it back. And now she was wearing it in  _ public _ , looking distinctly un-Betty. 

 

Her whole demeanor gave off the aura of someone who had collapsed in on themself. If he was being honest, she looked like he felt but without the black eye and cuts. His gut instinct was to rush over there and wrap his arms around her, to try to make it all better for her. 

 

Jughead wasn’t allowed to do that anymore. She had made sure of it. 

 

She seemed to shaking slightly, casting dark glances at her phone on the other side of the booth’s table, in between staring straight down at the ground. He couldn’t quite tell from the distance and angle, but Jughead was pretty sure she had tired, purple bags under her eyes. She wasn’t sleeping. That  _ really  _ wasn’t right.

 

The only thing that made sense was that her hands were wrapped around a mug of coffee. The vice grip on caffeine was the Betty he knew. Coupled with his instinct to hug her was the reflex to open her hands and make sure her palms weren’t bleeding. Betty Cooper was a warrior, the queen of keeping herself put together and her only tell was the marks on her hands. If she was this undone outwardly, Jughead could only imagine how bad her hands look. 

 

The thought made him want to cry. 

 

As though she felt his eyes on her, Betty looked up suddenly. Jughead felt her sharp intake of breath hit him squarely in the chest. Her exhausted eyes welled up with tears as she met his gaze, trembling, the coffee cup in her hands starting to rattle on its saucer. As quickly as she looked up, Betty broke eye contact and stared into her coffee. She folded further into herself and Jughead could see her fighting back sobs. 

 

Something was deeply, deeply wrong. 

 

The hollowness in Jughead’s chest dissipated, leaving only the ache of longing for the girl across the diner. He didn’t know what the hell to do, but knew he had to do something. He tossed a couple dollars on the counter for Pop and fled, breathing heavily and trying to choke down his own sobs. 

 

Whatever was going on with Betty Cooper, Jughead was going to figure it out. And then there’d be hell to pay for whomever was responsible. That much he was sure of. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still an angst-fest, just from Betty's POV. Again, I am so sorry.

It had been days since Betty slept through the night. The creeping sense of foreboding that came with the first call from the Black Hood evolved into a full-blown panic. Any time her phone lit up, Betty flinched, worried it would be that garbled, dark voice demanding more from her. The first blows of having to cut out her mother and Veronica were only cushioned by the desperate hope that maybe Jughead would be spared because they’d essentially been leading separate lives as of late. 

 

When the devil on the phone crushed that last shred of hope, Betty lost all semblance of herself. Archie was certainly doing his best to keep her afloat but at this point there wasn’t much to be done. They’d fix it later, she told herself. She just needed Jug to be safe. And Polly. As much as it physically pained her to throw insults she didn’t mean at her best friend, a verbal slap to the face that would need so much healing later, Betty just could not stand the thought of facing him and trying to tell him lies. She would have cracked, her intense love breaking through whatever falsities she came up with, and then Jughead would have been in grave danger. The mere thought that anything might happen to Jughead or to Polly knocked the wind out of her. 

 

Archie’s apprehension only deepened her resolve. “It doesn’t have to be cruel,” she’d begged him. It just needed to  _ work.  _ When Archie called her after going to the trailer, he sounded broken. 

 

“You’re in the clear, Betty.” Her heartbeat stuttered and she choked back a sob. She knew it was going to hurt to push Jughead away, but she wasn’t expecting it to feel like the world was closing in around her. Archie’s voice stabilized her a little, but he sounded angry and hurt too. “You should know,” he started. “He’s full in with the Serpents now. It might… I don’t know, Betts. It might be for the best.” 

 

Those words swirled around Betty’s head on an endless loop as she went through the motions of her usual life. She may as well have been a ghost: her parents were giving her the cold shoulder, Veronica was still very angry with her despite them all coming together in Cheryl’s aid, and now she had no Jughead. This was her personal hell. She was in a constant state of fear, jumping any time someone spoke to her, wishing she could launch her phone into Sweetwater River, and desperately trying to fold into herself and stop hurting. 

 

She wanted so badly to surround herself with her loved ones, but she had no one left now. Just like the damn Black Hood wanted. Isolated, hurting, and utterly heartbroken. 

 

Sleep-deprived and in a fugue state, Betty just wanted to go somewhere she might feel some semblance of normalcy. She awoke for the eighth time that night sometime just after 4:30am and finally decided to just get up. Maybe some coffee at Pop’s would help break her out of this nightmare spell. (She knew it was useless, but what else was left?) 

 

So she quietly dressed in her dark room, pulling on a sweatshirt she’d borrowed from Jughead that still smelled like nicotine and his soap. If she couldn’t be with him right now, she was going to cling to even the tiniest piece she had left.  _ The black hood can’t stop me from being sentimental _ , she thought bitterly. 

 

The diner looked the same as always, seemingly untouched from the dark chaos that was enveloping Betty’s life. It felt strange being there without her best friends, without Jughead. She wanted to go back to the afternoon just a few days prior, sitting in the booth with Jughead, grasping onto his hands for dear life and willing herself to say something,  _ anything  _ to clue him into what was wrong. Betty would give anything to rewind and tell him that  _ yes, please, let’s just run away. I want our happy ending.  _

 

Instead, here she was: alone, taking her fourth refill from a clearly concerned Pop, and wiping her tears away with the sleeve of Jughead’s sweatshirt. More than anything, she wanted it to be the real Jughead to be the salve on her wounds. But she had sent that ship sailing and all she could do is hope against hope that she really would be able to walk back all the damage she did. Or rather, that she had Archie help her do. In some deep corner of her brain, Betty knew sending Archie had been too cruel, but it really was the only thing she  _ knew  _ would work to keep him safe. It made her feel like absolute garbage. And scared her beyond belief that she wouldn’t be able to fix things enough for Jughead to forgive and take her back. 

 

She couldn’t bear to temporarily keep him out of her life, and Betty didn’t even want to fathom what it would be like long-term. 

 

So she stared into her coffee and willed herself not to cry. The tears came anyway because there was just too much to cry over. She cried for Polly, for Veronica, for the pain she knew she was putting Jughead through. Betty cried because she was so damn scared her phone would ring again. She cried because she was wearing a sweatshirt that warmed her but didn’t compare to the warmth of a hug from the boy who normally wore it. 

 

And then, almost as if she dreamed him into life, Betty looked up and there he was. Jughead was facing her, looking precisely like Betty had stomped on his heart and a little bit like he was seeing a ghost. She supposed he was. 

 

His face was bruised and covered in cuts. Betty started shaking. He’d  _ sworn _ , the Black Hood had promised he would leave Jughead alone if Betty did as he asked. She should have known better than to trust a murderer. And now she’d pushed him away for nothing. She needed to stop looking at him, she needed to keep her ground. If the Black Hood still hurt him after Betty pushed him away, there’s no telling what would come if she ran over to him and hugged him like her body was screaming to. She wanted to kiss the haunted look out of his eyes and clean his cuts and whisper endless apologies into his ear. Her body vibrated with need and a vice squeezed around her heart. This was all too much, it needed to stop. 

 

Betty broke eye contact with him, choking down sobs. She needed him to know she still loved him so much but she was so scared of what could happen. 

 

By the time she looked back up, Jughead was gone and she saw his retreating back running across the parking lot. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This episode has been wonderful for all sorts of emotional stress. But we're getting SO MUCH GOOD FIC AND META.   
> and per Jandy's request, I'm probably going to follow up with a part 3 where everything gets fixed and these two kiss & make up.


	3. Chapter 3

Jughead didn’t wind up going to school that day. Instead, he holed back up in the trailer, except this time he was replaying a new interaction in his mind. Only one thing was breaking through the haze of pain and heartbreak threatening to consume him: it, quite literally, did not make sense. Seeing Betty, disheveled and spiraling, had solidified the nagging feeling that something was off in how this all went down. 

Knowing this, of course, did not mean he felt any less like he wanted to vomit. Everything was a mess. 

Jughead hadn’t seen any of the Serpents since the night of his initiation. He ignored three calls from Sweet Pea, one from Toni, and one from Tall Boy. It was only logical that the pounding on the trailer’s door around 1pm was one of them coming to collect his sorry ass. What he had not expected was Veronica Lodge to come barging through the door, with all the grace of a hurricane. He jerked up from his horizontal position on the couch, torn between indignance and confusion.  _ What the hell did she think she was doing here,  _ but also  _ what is she doing here?  _

In all her glory—black dress, heels, pearls, and an arched eyebrow—Veronica looked lethal. She stared pointedly at the healing snake design on his upper arm and the fresh cuts on his face. “Looks like you’ve been busy.” 

“Yeah, well,” he scoffed. “What’s it to you?” 

The exasperated roll of her eyes felt so uniquely childish that Jughead couldn’t help but be hit by the realization that  _ god  _ they were all still just high schoolers. “Jesus, Jughead, did you catch the bitter and bitchy flu from your girlfriend or what? I don’t have the patience for both of you to do this right now.” Now it was Jughead’s turn to raise an eyebrow, despite the fact that the mention of  _ girlfriend  _ felt like a punch to the gut. Veronica sighed. “Is she here?” 

Something really did not feel right. “Why would she be here?” he asked slowly, choking slightly when he couldn’t bring himself to say her name out loud. 

Veronica crossed her arms and tapped the toe of her high heels impatiently. “Because she is not at school, or at her house or Pop’s, and by process of elimination, that means she’s wherever you are. Star-crossed lovers attached at the hip, and whatnot.” 

“Not anymore,” Jughead muttered, more to himself than anything else. 

Both of Veronica’s eyebrows were sky high. “What exactly,” she said sharply, “is that supposed to mean?” 

Jughead was exhausted and confused, and was not at all interested in rehashing the agony of his public heartbreak to the girl closest to both people who had played a role in the situation. Running shaky fingers through his matted hair—shit, he really should shower—he pulled himself off the couch to stand level with Veronica. 

“It means,” he sighed, “that Betty sent  _ your boyfriend  _ over here to tell me that she didn’t want anything to do with me anymore. So you can take your pearls and judgement back to the Northside and take it up with those two, because the feeling is mutual and you need to get out.” 

Veronica blinked, stunned. “I don’t… she  _ what?”  _ She shook her head. “You, too? What in the hell is going on with that girl.” 

He was halfway to opening the door and unceremoniously shoving Veronica through it, but faltered. “What do you mean,  _ me too?”  _

She looked up at him, trepidation now clear in her expression. It took a lot to faze Veronica Lodge and she was obviously shaken. “I mean that something is very,  _ very _ wrong with Betty.”

 

After seeing Jughead in the diner that morning, Betty simply did not have any energy left to put up pretenses. Not that her pretenses had been all that believable the past few days. When she had finally gained her composure, she walked home and snuck back into her room, using the ladder her dad  _ still  _ hadn’t moved to climb through her window and avoid Alice catching her. The last thing she felt like was getting chastised for skipping school. 

And school, surrounded by people who so genuinely cared for her and she had so cruelly hurt, was exactly the last place she wanted to be. The Black Hood wanted her alone? Then fine, she was going to be alone as it gets: holed up in her bedroom, weeping freely, and talking to no one. 

She had been so close to giving up and going over to Jug.  _ So close. _ She couldn’t run the risk of being around anyone she wasn’t supposed to be, lest all of this fall to pieces. Everything was so overwhelming that Betty knew the next “you alright, Betty?” was going to break her and she just needed her loved ones to be safe. Being apart from them was agonizing, but losing any one of them would absolutely crush her. 

Fitful sleep drifted over her eventually, her body far too exhausted to fight the inevitable. She was weak from sleep deprivation and the unending sobs left her unable to catch her breath completely. Shuddering exhales evened out into soft hiccups that kept her from falling into a deep enough sleep to forget the constant ache in her chest. 

Betty was somewhere between sleep and consciousness when she heart a harsh knocking. In an instant, she flung herself from the bed and into a corner, tears streaming down her face against and body trembling. Her phone wasn’t ringing, no cheerful tune that would haunt her nightmares for years to come, but what if this had escalated already. What if his demands weren’t enough? Had this monster finally come to hurt her physically? 

An errant thought flew across Betty’s frazzled mind: would it really be any worse if he did? 

The knocking came again, this time gentler and with a muffled “ _ Betty, please.” _

She blinked. She knew that voice. For a few brief seconds she forgot the reality of her situation, hearing Jughead’s voice put her at ease and a blissful calm settled over her.  _ He came back for me. He’s fighting for us. _ And then she remembered. This wasn’t safe. Betty was being watched and that meant Jughead was being watched. She could not let the Black Hood catch them together, it would be suicide. 

Scrambling, Betty ran to the window, throwing it open and yanking Jughead inside. “You can’t  _ be here,  _ Jug. You have to go,” she whispered harshly, feeling her heart crack open again. She gestured at his bruises, willing her voice to sound more confident and less like she couldn’t breathe. “If he already did this to you, he’s going to do much worse if he sees you here. You need to go,  _ please. Please go.”  _ Her voice caught on the second please and a fresh wave of tears washed over her. 

Jughead grabbed her shoulders, trying to steady her and get a read on what the hell was happening. “Betts, I don’t get it, who’s going to do what? What the hell is going on?” 

Betty let out a strangled yelp when he moved one hand to her face, trying to lift her gaze, and backed away quickly. He dropped his hands, as though burned. The small voice in the back of his head taunted him,  _ see, she really doesn’t want you anymore. She can’t even stand having you touch her.  _ Jughead shoved the thought aside; the weeping Betty in front of him told another story. 

It was agony to look at her. Betty was still wearing his sweatshirt and a flame ignited low in his belly at seeing her in his clothing. It hurt in the best of ways. She was beautiful, always beautiful to him, but something deep inside her was broken and bleeding and it showed on her face. Whatever inner turmoil Betty had been fighting to keep inside had spilled over. 

She was at war with herself, trying so hard to suppress the need to rush over to Jughead and not let go, never let him go ever again. But the chilling voice from the phone calls kept her frozen in place. Scared of what she would do if she kept looking at him, the concern etched in his bruised face, Betty spun on her heels so that all Jughead could see of her was her shaking back. 

Her voice was thick with tears when she spoke again and the pieces of the puzzle finally started falling together in Jughead’s mind. “It was supposed to keep you  _ safe, _ it was the deal. I keep you away and he wasn’t going to hurt you.” 

The force of the realization hit him like a ton of bricks. God he had been so  _ stupid.  _ So caught up in trying to keep a bitter turf war at bay that he he hadn’t even noticed his own girlfriend, the  _ love of his life,  _ was being tortured and put through hell by some sick fuck in a black hood. Jughead reached out gently for Betty’s shoulder, relief washing through him when she didn’t flinch, and slowly turned her to face him. He still kept her at a distance so she could see the truth in his eyes and hear him, but it was torture not to envelop her in a bear hug and never let her go. “He’s been threatening you, hasn’t he? The Hood.” 

Betty was crying too hard to get words out and nodded silently.

“ _God,_ Betts. This—” he pointed at his face, “this wasn’t him. It was…” He trailed off because goddammit, this isn’t how he wanted to tell her. But there was no other option, his insecurity and tendency toward self-preservation had gotten them halfway into this mess. He owed her this much. Clearing his throat, he whispered to her. “Hey, Betty, please look at me.” She lifted her tear-stained face to meet his gaze. Now or never. And it was now, because he never, ever wanted to be apart from her again, never wanted to see her cry like this. 

“This is all from Serpents initiation. I’m— I’m all in now. I thought it was going to help, so they’d stop pulling shit like jumping Archie and trying to scare you off. I thought it could fix things, keep them at bay and put the brakes on this stupid civil war they’ve got going. And then after Archie came and said those things—” A sob escaped Betty and he needed to hurry up because he needed to hug her, needed to fix this. “—after I thought you didn’t love me anymore, I just went in head first. I’m in over my head, for sure. And — Jesus— and Toni kissed me and I didn’t stop her because everything hurt too goddamn much and now apparently I was a blind moron too caught up in my own bullshit to recognize what was going on with you.” 

A heavy silence settled between them, punctured only by Betty trying to catch her breath. “Did… did you kiss her back?” 

Jughead’s free hand rubbed at the back of his neck. “I… maybe, I don’t know. I was in agony and had just gotten the shit kicked out of me and thought you were never going to speak to me again.” 

Breathing deeply, Betty steeled her nerves, trying to figure out what she was supposed to do next. But she was tired of thinking and tired of being alone and all she wanted was to feel safe again. Without giving herself the chance to second guess it, she crashed into Jughead, the force of her hug nearly bowling his bruised body over. It was a broken, crying chant she uttered into his ear as her arms went around his neck and his tightly circled her hips, the heat of his skin burning through the worn material of the sweatshirt: “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I love you, I’m sorry.” 

They clung to each other, each acutely feeling the tension melt away as their bodies returned to homeostasis in their arms. What a goddamn mess it all was. 

Jughead pulled back slightly after Betty’s apologies and “I love you’s” faded to whispers against his neck. “We’re going to deal with this,” he said fiercely. “Whatever the Black Hood is trying to pull, whatever torture he wants to put you through, we’re going to handle it together. I promise. I will not go anywhere.” 

Fingers flexing at her hips, he bent down and captured her mouth in a searing kiss. He’d intended for it to be brief, but she opened her lips to his and suddenly he was drowning and she was his life raft. Their lips slid over each other hotly, the tears on Betty’s face tingeing the taste of her with salt. Her hands came up to cradle his face and his hissed when her thumb brushed over the deepest part of his bruised eye, his own hands finding themselves tangled in her loose hair. It was a maelstrom of emotions unleashing between them: anger, heartbreak, fear, and the unmistakable urge to remind themselves they belonged to each other. Jughead trailed his lips down her neck, lapping up her tears and sucking at the pulse point just below her jaw. He relished in the low keening coming from deep in Betty’s throat.  _ This  _ is what kissing was supposed to feel like—as though you were burning alive but if you stopped, you’d explode. 

Betty dragged his mouth back to hers, biting at his lower lip and ready to lose herself in this moment. Eventually their urgency died down, though the burn of his hands just under the hem the sweatshirt made her want to keep going and never stop. When they broke apart, Jughead peppered light kisses across her face before pressing a final long one on her forehead. 

“We’ve got this, Betts. We’ve got each other and we’ve got this.” 

 

_ fin.  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as heartbreaking as this episode was, it's great inspiration.  
> I am choosing to believe this solve is canon, please join in my denial until the show writers fix it for us. 
> 
> as always: comments are much appreciated and feed my need to validation.  
> find me on tumblr under the same handle.

**Author's Note:**

> I may or may not be plotting a part two that gives this from Betty's side. I have so many feelings about this episode. 
> 
> as always, please share your thoughts!  
> you can find me on tumblr under the same handle.


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